


Revenge of the Rebellion

by Omnifiglot



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Luke Organa, leia skywalker - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2020-12-31 07:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 18,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnifiglot/pseuds/Omnifiglot
Summary: The OT but Leia was hidden on Tatooine and Luke on Alderaan. The plot will diverge from the OT farther and farther the further along we go, as different personalities in different situations make different choices.I’m sure this idea has been done more times than there are stars in the galaxy, but as Pete Docter advised at a Pixar campus event, it’s not the specific idea necessarily but the “You” filter that puts a unique spin on whatever may not be new under the sun.





	1. Title Crawl and Opening

STAR WARS

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Prince Luke of Alderaan races home aboard his starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save his people and restore freedom to the galaxy.....

The Tantive IV rocked as another brilliant green turbolaser smashed into its hull. This one must have hit one of the reactors, because the the crew was briefly thrust into a darkness interrupted only by the photoreceptors and lights of droids and instrument panels. When the auxiliary power kicked in and the lights on the ship’s computers returned, Prince Luke Organa lost no time in ejecting the physical disc of the secret Imperial plans and typing in the command that would wipe out all traces of their trip to Scarif or the data stolen by the Alliance.

“Your highness,” came Captain Antilles’ urgent voice just behind him. “We need to evacuate you now.” 

Luke didn’t answer him, hastily writing a program that would hopefully delay the Imperial intelligence officers from so much as accessing the system—every second of Imperial time wasted was time in the hands of the Alliance. 

“Your highness—” 

“Yes, I know. They hit the main reactor. There’s no escaping them. But I’m not going anywhere.”

“But your highness—”

“Besides, there’s nowhere to run. Imperials have been known to fire on escape pods, and the second they scan lifeforms on board, I’m fried.”

“But the Rebellion needs you.” Captain Antilles looked deflated. Luke’s heart sank as he read the man’s face. Luke always had had a knack for reading people’s thoughts and feelings. And he knew that Captain Antilles had just sent a squadron to the airlock to die. They’d known it, and they’d gone anyway. The Captain knew his own fate, too. But to lose Luke, and for the plans to fail to return to Yavin 4 ….

“The Rebellion will get the plans,” Luke promised, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’ve arranged everything. You’ve done your part. And so have I. The Rebellion is bigger than us. It will go on without us.”

Captain Antilles nodded, though he looked like he was little comforted by Luke’s speech. And, truth be told, neither was Luke. But if anyone had a shot, it was Artoo and Threepio.

Well, Artoo anyway.

“That’s funny,” Threepio remarked as the Tantive IV shrank through the viewport of the escape pod as they fell further and further away from it. “The damage doesn’t look as bad from out here.”

“Shut up,” Artoo advised. 

“Are you sure this thing is safe?” Threepio asked, ignoring this impoliteness.

“Nowhere is safe for protocol droids,” he beeped.  
Threepio ignored this too. That suited Artoo just fine. Threepio was eminently useful for interfacing with sentients and serving as a heat sink for their ire. He was not useful for much else.

And unfortunately, he was uncomfortable with silence.

“I don’t suppose you were able to program coordinates to a space station or larger settlement?” Threepio ventured.

“No.”

“Well, then what’s the point of all this? It would hardly serve this ‘mission’ you speak of for us to sink into some ocean or be torn to pieces by a forest crash landing or—“

“It’s Tatooine, wipedrive. You were reassembled here once. Desert planet.”

“Desert?” Threepio moaned. “Oh no. It’ll be positively brimming with sand. Rough, course sand that gets everywhere.”

“Oh, can it.”

Threepio sullenly, mercifully, remained silent for the remainder of their brief flight.


	2. Meanwhile on a certain very dull rock ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia catches sight of the battle overhead

It was remarkable how some places never changed, but not Tatooine. Tatooine’s sameness was as unremarkable as the planet itself. Tatooine had no motive to change. Tatooine thrived on sameness and dryness and remoteness.

Leia Skywalker would’ve destroyed the whole planet if she could.

She went about her morning chores with practiced speed, because she definitely had somewhere better to be. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would be none the wiser if she slipped off to see her friends once the instruments had been checked and recalibrated. After all, once everything was in place, moisture could quite literally farm itself.

In the purple haze of dawn, she looked over the humble homestead, a bump in the desert abutting the Jundland Wastes, and dreamed of what it must be like to not have to face the searing heat and sweat and daily, hourly, minute-by-minute boredom this hopeless, worthless rock offered.

It was then, as she stood motionless, watching the horizon as the dawn progressed, that she spied a figure approaching in a speeder. A figure with a black cape rippling behind him.

Leia smiled, shaking her head. Well, some things on Tatooine were okay.

Biggs Darklighter cut the engines well before coming within range of the homestead’s paltry sensors and hopped out of the speeder as Leia walked the remaining distance to meet him.

“You’re playing with fire,” she said, planting a hand on her hip. “You know my uncle said he’s going to shoot you the next time he finds your snooping around here.”

“Owen’s all bark and no bite,” Biggs grinned.

“But I’m not,” Leia retorted, seizing Bigg’s lapel and pulling him into a kiss.

Tatooine was filled with washed up spacers, bounty hunters, Hutt scum, and plenty of folks just passing through. But it also had the occasional big-hearted, mustachioed farm boy,

“What are you doing back here?” Leia asked seriously, releasing him. “Aren’t you supposed to be a hotshot TIE fighter pilot right about now? Did the Empire give you leave or something?”

“Not exactly,” Biggs said through a grin that was half excited and half nervous. Leia was suddenly filled with apprehension. “Leia, I defected.”

“You what?”

“I joined the Rebel Alliance. Just after graduation. A whole group of us in the Academy did. Look, I’m going to do something important, Leia.”

“Am I not important enough? What about our plan?”

“Our plan can still happen! I’m off to rendezvous with the fleet in twelve hours. I came back to let you know.” 

“Well, thanks for sparing me a thought!” Leia shot, turning her shoulder to him.

“Leia …” his voice was soothing. Conciliatory. Dangerously punchable. “Leia, I wanted to ask you to come with me.”

“Come with you? To join the Rebel Alliance? Why don’t we go off and work for the Hutts and do their dirty work? Or the Pikes? Or—”

“The Alliance just attacked a secret Imperial facility in the Outer Rim, not far from here. We stole something important from them, and got away. Leia, we won. The Rebellion can fight the Empire.”

She didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t admit it, but something in what he said piqued … something in her. Secret Imperial facilities, stealing secrets, winning battles. A strange thrill went through her, and just then the first sun crested, bright red, over the horizon. Unknown planets, taking on the Empire, going on a grand adventure across the stars. It wasn’t something she had seriously thought about. But it, like the suns was just so … far away.

Which tore her in two. Far away from this hated, hot rock. But faced with the sudden choice … the sudden immediacy of leaving behind everything she knew … and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru …

Something flashed in the still-darkened sky.

“What the—” Biggs stammered.

More flashes. Many more. Red and green, and white bursts. And just the faintest specks of ships.

Biggs grabbed the macrobinoculars in the seat of the speeder, peering through them.

“It’s an Imperial Star Destroyer,” he said in awe. 

“Chasing … is that one of ours?”

“Let me see,” Leia said, taking the macrobinoculars.

There was no mistaking the triangular shape of the Star Destroyer. Its green turbolasers were blasting what appeared to be a blockade runner, most shots bursting into flashes of light off its shields, until—

FLASH

“They got it,” she breathed. “They hit it hard.”  
The crippled blockade runner’s speed decreased, and in a few moments it was swallowed up by the Star Destroyer. She felt a sigh leave her, and a part of her deflated. The call to adventure felt a lot more stupid now.

“Some Rebel fleet,” she said, handing the macrobinoculars back. “I hope that wasn’t your ride.”

“No, I came with … there’s … but what was that about? Why would a Rebel blockade runner be all the way out here … and why would the Empire bother sending …”

“Didn’t you say that secret Imperial facility wasn’t far from here?” she asked sardonically.

Biggs didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

“Sounds like your Rebellion’s great victory just turned into a defeat. I’m sorry, Biggs. But joining a terrorist cell and getting vaporized by the Empire wasn’t the plan we made.”

“We can still win.”

“Or we can die. I was going to join you in the Imperial navy, not on an execution block.”

They watched in silence as the Star Destroyer’s shape grew larger, large enough that the macrobinoculars weren’t needed to see it. It was coming into orbit.

“You better get out of here before they find you,” she said.

“Leia—”

“Just go.”

And he did.

After his speeder was out of sight, she slammed her foot into the sand, pouring all her frustration and disappointment into that stomp. Biggs, that beautiful idiot, was gone, and with him went her dreams of getting off this rock. Maybe she could still apply for the Imperial Academy next season. 

But Biggs was supposed to be her recommendation. He was supposed to be her boyfriend. And now he was space dust in the making.

Well, she thought glumly. Guess it was time to do some more chores. The jawas would be visiting tomorrow to sell them some junk droids and there was work to be done to get things ready for the new arrivals. She wondered as she marched back to the homestead, shoulders slumped, if there wasn’t still time to sneak off to Tosche Station. At least she could commiserate with some of her real friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biggs Darklighter and his glorious mustache are not to be underestimated. Biggs. Biggs. Biggs.


	3. Luke Politely Greets Vader and Leia Discovers a Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving right along

“Lord Vader,” smiled Luke, offering a deep bow. “It’s good to see you again. What brings you on board my humble ship?”

“Don’t play games with me, your highness,” boomed the mechanically-tinged voice of the black-armored behemoth that towered overhead. “You weren’t on any mercy mission this time. We tracked the signature from your damaged hyperdrive from the Scarif system.”

“I hear the beaches of Scarif are unparalleled.”

“Perhaps you should take a sabbatical there now, your highness. I doubt you’d find them to your liking in their present state, after your rebel friends attacked us. Now, where are the stolen plans your ship received?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke said serenely, noting the quickening of the pace of Vader's labored breathing. He was getting under his skin. “This is a senatorial ship with every right to pass through Imperial space, including Scarif. We are on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan—”

The Emperor's enforcer's patience snapped.

“You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor," cried the behemoth of a man, shaking a finger in Luke's face. Luke smiled apologetically.

Disgusted, Vader dismissed him with a wave of his hand, barking, "Take him away!”

As the stormtroopers seized Luke's shoulders and led him away, Luke let out a sigh of relief. So the Empire hadn’t recovered the plans. He didn’t have proof that Artoo and Threepio had made it planetside, but at least they hadn’t been captured.

There was still hope.

* * *

“Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

The hologram of the boy in white robes bent over, as if giving a gift to a child, before it restarted. Leia frowned. 

The new droids were an absolute mess, covered in carbon scoring that made the jawas’ advertisement of lightly used downright hilarious. Maybe lightly used as target practice, but not for protocol or whatever it was Uncle Owen needed an astromech for.

Really, what purpose was the little R2 unit supposed to serve? They didn’t need any hyperdrive coordinates or astrogation charts for their moisture crops, unless the homestead suddenly became spaceworthy and decided to sell water on Sullust.

And now the blue-domed droid was malfunctioning, stuck in a holo display loop.

“Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

“What’s that?” Leia asked, cocking an eyebrow at the boy in the holo.

The R2 unit gave a vibrating, flatulent beep.

“What is what?” Threepio asked. “She asked you a question! What is that?”

“Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope. Help me Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope. Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

Artoo tooted further.

“Oh, he says it’s nothing, madame. Merely a malfunction. Pay it no mind.”

“Who is that moof milker?” asked Leia. The boy was certainly no Biggs Darklighter. He looked so young, she doubted he could even grow a moustache.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi …”

“I’m not quite sure, madame. I believe he was a passenger on our final voyage. A person of some importance, I think. He and Captain Antilles were involved in the Rebel Alliance, and—”

“What do you know about the Rebel Alliance?” Leia asked, looking at the droids—and their carbon scoring—with new interest.

“That’s how we came to be in your service, if you take my meaning, madame.”

She frowned, the memory of her confrontation with Biggs only too fresh in her mind.

“How long ago did you come to Tatooine?” she ventured.

“Oh, by my chronometer’s measurement … no more than twenty-eight hours ago, I think. The sand may have gotten into some sensitive areas that may have impacted my chronometer’s functionality—”

“Did you come in that blockade runner? The one that was captured by the Imperial Star Destroyer?”

“Why, yes! In fact—”

The R2 unit began to wail, the sound followed by a litany of hostile beeps.

“Classified?” Threepio scoffed. “Mistress Leia is our master now, Artoo! We are beholden to none of our former owners anymore.”

Artoo gave a low, grinding toot.

“Traitor? Oh dear. It’s clear that you have a lot to learn about the ethics of—”

A numbness filled Leia as the realization dawned.

“The stolen plans,” she said. “The boy hid them with you and sent you here to hide. No—to deliver them to this Obi-Wan person.”

“Nobody sent us anywhere,” Threepio insisted. “We escaped—”

Artoo beeped loudly.

“You have no mission because Master Luke is no longer our master!”

“Do you realize the danger you put us in?” Leia shouted. “If the Empire traces you to us—” her mind was racing through all the possibilities, each worse than the last. At last, she shook her head. “We need to get you out of here. *We* need to get out of here.”

“Begging your pardon, madame, but where would we go?” Threepio asked.

“Anywhere. Just not here.”

Artoo began to twitter excitedly.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Threepio said mournfully. “I’m afraid he can be ever so temperamental. He claims that Obi-Wan Kenobi may provide protection.”

“Obi-Wan …” Leia turned the name over in her mind. “I wonder if he could be related to old Ben Kenobi.”

Old Ben Kenobi was a crazy old man who lived alone in a hut even more remote and desolate than the homestead, but he was nice enough, and he told great stories. She doubted he would be much help against the Empire, but he was such a recluse that his place might be safe enough to hide out in for a while.

Presently, she directed Artoo and Threepio to get into the speeder while she braced herself to argue with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.


	4. Across the Dune Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia convinces her aunt and uncle to leave the homestead and hide out in the desert with old Ben Kenobi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First draft, so apologies if there are typos ... my baby was on the fussy side tonight and didn't leave me a lot of time for drafting!

“It’s that Biggs boy!” was the phrase that Owen, predictably, chose to begin his rant. “I don’t know how many times I told you he was no good, filling your head with ideas of war and glory and all that damn fool crusade nonsense!”

Leia charitably didn’t shout back in frustration.

“This isn’t about Biggs. This is about those droids you bought.”

“I’m really supposed to think that you’ve been trying to sneak off with that boy for years and then suddenly, when he’s back in town and joined the Rebel Alliance, we have to run because now the Empire is after us? I wasn’t born yesterday!”

“No, but you might die tomorrow!” Leia gave up on charity now, resorting to the shouting match Owen evidently wanted so badly.

“What’s all this about?”

Aunt Beru popped her head around the corner, surveying the scene with a sweetness both Leia and Owen knew to be a mask—a mask of calm and kindness she wore before she launched into the fray like a tempest. A tempest that sometimes took Owen’s side and sometimes Leia’s, but a force to be reckoned with either way.

Both Leia and Owen went quiet.

“Is there something wrong with the droids you bought?”

She directed this at Owen, who opened his mouth to reply, but Leia cut in before he had the chance.

“The droids are going to lead the Empire to us! There was a hidden message in the astromech—and why did we get need an astromech in the first place?—and there’s now a star destroyer in orbit over the planet, and—”

“Biggs—kriffing—Darklighter!” bellowed Uncle Owen. “That boy has been trying to steal Leia away for years, and now—”

“Watch your language, Owen,” Aunt Beru said with a dangerously sweet look at the man, whose face went the color of a jawa’s cloak. “I know all about the Darklighter boy already, but this business about a hidden message is new. Now, Leia, what’s going on?”

“But Beru …”

“Not now, Owen.”

And he went silent.

Leia made no effort to hide the triumph in her face as she told Beru what had happened. And after checking the astromech’s files and showing the message to her aunt, it was only an hour before their bags were packed and the five of them—an exultant but relieved Leia, a sweet-faced Beru, a scowling Owen, and the two “lightly used” droids—into the speeder and they were off, kicking up a rooster tail of sand through the Dune Sea on their way to the hut of old Ben Kenobi.

Uncle Owen dared make only one feeble protest:

”But the farm …”

“Oh, Owen,” smiled Beru. “You know that once the instruments are calibrated, moisture can farm itself.”

Beyond that, the trip passed in silence, both Leia and Owen in wonderment that Beru’s calm had remained so steady. The tempest was going to break out—it always did—but neither of them wanted to be the one to bear the brunt of it.

So it was completely silent, save for the hum of the speeder, when the first crack of a cycler rifle tore through the hot air.

A blast of wind pelted Leia’s face as the projectile displaced the air as it tore past her, just inches away.

“Tuskens!” barked Owen.

The report of another cycler shot echoed through the desert. Sparks flew off the nose of the speeder, which shuddered under the impact of the blast.

“Leia, you’re the pilot!” cried Owen. “Do something!”

But she barely heard him.

It was happening.

It happened, sometimes. Usually when her heart began pumping like the rotors of a podracer’s engine, when she was doing something dangerous and stupid and something went horrible wrong. When death was rushing toward her—that was when it happened. 

And what happened was this:

Though she knew her heart was still pounding at the same speed, she heard it as a slow, steady rhythm—an easy metronome that marked the slowing of time.

And as time slowed, it morphed. It was like she could see double, or triple, or quadruple—each a distinct vision of what was about to happen. Sometimes it was two: she crashed her T-16 skyhopper into the base of a pillar of Beggar’s Canyon, and she pulled up just in time. Sometimes it was more: she was hit by a stray blast from a gunfight in the cantina, or she dodged just in time, or—and these troubled her—she seized another patron and threw them in the way of the blast.

Right now, there were two paths before her: she was about to be struck square in the forehead by a cycler bolt, her head leaving behind a stream of red like the tail of a comet as the speeder spun out of control and crashed; and she was about to bank hard to the left and they would all live.

She chose the latter.

Time resumed.

*Crack*

Her ear seared with heat as the bolt grazed it. She gritted her teeth to keep in the yelp of pain. They weren’t out of this yet.

But somehow she knew they would be.

It happened again.

This time it was more vague; she headed for a nearby canyon or she continued along the high ground. The choice would have to be made soon, but she couldn’t see the difference—whether one was a better choice than another.

But her instincts told her to aim for the canyon.

So she did.

And she immediately regretted it.

It didn’t take long to see the sun-whitened bones poking out of the sand—in far higher concentrations than one normally found. And she caught the faintest hint of coolness. Ahead, she saw why: the canyon terminated in a large cave.

The kind of cave known to harbor Krayt dragons.

“Leia,” Owen bellowed, “What are you doing?”

“Leia—” Beru added, the first hint of tension in her voice.

The cave drew nearer.

It was not happening again—no clues as to what she should do. Panic began to set in.

The astromech began beeping excitedly behind them.

“Good news,” the protocol droid said brightly. “Artoo says that the six life forms who were firing on us no longer appear on his scanners. He says that he reads only *one* life form now—far better odds, if you ask me.”

No one had.

Leia pulled the speeder to a halt before the cave.

Its dark coolness would have been a relief anywhere but at the end of a bone-strewn canyon in the Dune Sea.

“Turn us around,” Beru said, her voice calm enough, but no longer sweet.

She was only too glad to.

But when she brought the speeder about, she nearly jumped out of her skin to come face to face with a tall, cloaked figure.

“Kriffing—” blurted Owen, clutching his heart.

Artoo gave a triumphant toot.

The figure pulled back the cowl of the cloak, revealing the smiling face of old Ben Kenobi.

“Hello there,” the old man said genially.


	5. Stories of the Past—from a Certain Point of View

“What a peculiar man,” Threepio chimed stupidly.

“General Kenobi has always been peculiar, wipedrive.”

Artoo and Threepio sat almost forgotten in a remote alcove of the hut of the man who had once been General Kenobi, the great negotiator of the Clone Wars. Commanders of droid armies had turned tail and run at the sight of this man, Artoo remembered fondly. Assassination attempts were made on him. Galactic leaders had relied on him. He had sat on the Jedi Council. And now they were in his tiny hut on the second-worst planet in the Outer Rim.

The worst was Kessel, of course, and by a wide margin, but this dusty rock was up there. Every time Artoo had to come here, he was sure it was the worst visit he would have, but room would have to be made at the top of the leaderboard for this visit.

“They all seem rather agitated,” observed Threepio.

“Keen observation.”

Of course they were agitated. The Empire would have their names and faces plastered everywhere on the planet by the end of the week, or sooner, depending on how fast they worked. If Artoo had registered the attacking stormtrooper serials correctly, they were the 501st—their former master’s unit.

“Oh, they’re sitting down to tea. They must be resolving their issues in a civilized manner. Thank the Maker.”

A pang ran through Artoo’s circuits at the name. He refrained from his usual snarky retort this time. If only the poor wipedrive knew what he was saying.

An alert woke his system as his photoreceptors registered General Kenobi gesturing at him, indicating that he should approach the table where the sentients sat. Well, he thought. Show time.

He extended his front wheel and made his way to General Kenobi’s side.

It felt both familiar and awkward. Although his chronometer registered nineteen standard galactic years had passed, a strange sense of deja vu passed through him, and he could almost believe it was the Clone Wars again. He could almost see, around the table, the faces of the clones, Cody, Rex, and also his master, sharing in a joke before a mission briefing.

The sensation left him as quickly as it came, and Owen, Beru, and Leia watched him from their seats, sipping their tea. And General Kenobi, his hair gone white and his face etched with premature wrinkles from the torturous Tatooine suns. He looked at least thirty years old than when Artoo had last seen him.

“This little one?” General Kenobi asked, resting a hand on Artoo’s dome.

Leia nodded.

“That’s the one. Uncle Owen bought him from the Jawas the other day. Found an interesting message while cleaning him.”

Kenobi’s hand slipped back along the dome to one of the memory override panels on Artoo’s back and flipped the switch.

“I seem to have found it,” the old man said wryly.

Suddenly, without realizing it, Artoo was projecting the prince’s message onto the tea table. And there came the prince’s voice, speaking his mission. I contain information vital to the survival of the rebellion. Take me to Alderaan, where the boy’s adopted father will extract it. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

The message concluded and faded, and the room fell into silence. General Kenobi looked as though he were reliving every moment that had transpired from all those years ago.

“Then you’re this Obi-wan Kenobi? You fought in the Clone Wars?” Leia said finally, her face registering something like awe.

General Kenobi didn’t say anything at first, his eyes still distant, before he gave a small nod of his head.

“I am Obi-wan Kenobi,” he said at last. “Truth be told, I haven’t tried much to hide my name. The agents of the Empire have shown a … predictable reluctance to visit this place.”

“Fought in the Clone Wars,” Owen said with a shake of his head. “Obi-wan Kenobi was the Clone Wars. He and your father. General Skywalker. They were at the forefront of the war, fighting back the Separatists. They rescued Emperor Palpatine from a hostage situation once.”

“Owen,” Beru said warningly, her dangerous sweetness returned.

“What? It’s time we told her. It’s all falling apart anyway. He was also a temperamental bastard. Kept looking at us like we were … I don’t know. Beneath him. Like he’d rather not associate with us. Only did because he had to after my father married his mother.”

“My father was … a … famous general?”

Artoo was not surprised to see that she was struggling to come to grips with it. To grow up on this rock and learn that she was the daughter of his master, the bravest, noblest master a droid could have …

“But you said he was just a navigator on a spice freighter …”

“Your uncle was wise to hide the truth from you,” General Kenobi said. “Before the dark times, the Republic ruled the galaxy for a thousand generations in peace, administering justice—a peace kept in part by the Jedi. Jedi like myself and your father.”

“He was … a Jedi?”

“Yes. He was a powerful Jedi. And a good friend. But when the Empire consumed the Republic, the Jedi were seen as a threat to the Emperor’s power, and he ordered their deaths. Some perished at the hands of the clones. Many by the hand of one of my students—a young, powerful Jedi named Darth Vader who was seduced by the dark side of the force, and was bent to serve it and the new Empire.”

“But Owen, you always told me my father was killed by pirates.”

“Everything I told you was to keep you safe,” Owen said firmly. “Your aunt and I decided you would be safer not knowing—”

“Not knowing that my father was amazing? That he was one of the greatest generals in the Clone Wars? That he was a Jedi Knight?”

“Leia,” Obi-wan said, his expression grave, “Darth Vader murdered your father. And after that, he hunted down and murdered every Jedi he could find, even the children in training, on the Emperor’s orders. If rumors began circulating that the daughter of Anakin Skywalker lived, I have no doubt that the servants of the Empire would be dispatched to hunt you down. You would be killed, the same as your father. And for taking you in, so would your aunt and uncle.”

Leia didn’t say anything for a moment. Artoo sensed increased heart palpitations and read anger and confusion on her face. Obi-wan must have sensed it as well, because he quickly stood and reached into a container on one of the shelves behind him.

“Which reminds me,” he said brightly, “your father would’ve wanted you to have this.”

He held the Master’s lightsaber in his hand. Artoo increased the exposure and contrast of his photoreceptors to drink the image in all the more vividly. He hadn’t seen this relic since Mustafar nineteen years ago. Whatever the Master may have become, his lightsaber shone as bright and noble as ever.

“A weapon from a more civilized age,” Obi-wan said reverentially, placing the chrome hilt in Leia’s hand. “The weapon of a Jedi.”

“I’m no Jedi,” she said in a distant voice, weighing the hilt in her hand. “Just a farm girl.”

The saber ignited with its familiar hiss, bathing the room in blue light. Owen and Beru stared—Artoo tried to remember if they’d ever seen an ignited lightsaber before.

“Come with me to Alderaan,” Obi-wan said suddenly, the light of the saber reflected in his blue eyes. “I can show you the ways of the Force. I can train you as I trained your father.”

“Out of the question,” Beru said firmly. “You want our Leia to join the Rebellion? To get killed by an Imperial firing squad or blasted into dust in space?”

"Damn fool crusade," grunted Owen.

“You were born to greater things, Leia,” Obi-wan said calmly. “Feel the Force calling to you. And heed the boy’s cry for help,” he added, looking to Artoo. “I need your help, too, Leia. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.”

Whatever was going through Leia’s head was beyond Artoo, who watched dumbfounded as she deignited the Master’s—no, her lightsaber. She took a deep breath.

“Aunt Beru’s right. Whoever my father was, I’m not some kind of galactic hero.”

Obi-wan let out a sigh, but didn’t protest.

“If you can let my aunt and uncle hide out here till the Empire leaves Tatooine, at least, I can take you to Mos Eisley and you can probably find someone there who can take you to Alderaan. But there’s nothing I can do against the whole empire, even with a fancy laser sword.”

“Very well,” Obi-wan said, resigned. “I won’t be needing this old place anymore, regardless. Beru, Owen, keep it. You’ll be safe here.  
“Leia, we’d best be on the move. The sooner we reach Mos Eisley, the better my chance of reaching Alderaan undetected by the Empire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I operate on the assumption that Owen and Beru don't know that Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. In canon, it seems that until the events of Bloodline, it was well known who Anakin Skywalker was and that Luke was his son, but not that Anakin Skywalker was also Darth Vader—presumably, everyone thought he was killed with the rest of the Jedi under Order 66. Ahsoka Tano is also horrified when she discovers Darth Vader's identity, so even close friends and associates don't seem to have known. In this version, I assume only Bail Organa, Yoda, and Obi-wan (well, and Tarkin and Palpatine, and maybe the Sith Inquisitors who were former Jedi) were aware. Well, and Artoo, of course.
> 
> Also, I really wanted to play with motivations a bit. I want Leia's crossing the threshold of adventure to be different from Luke's, so Owen and Beru survive here. Her decision point will come later, but very soon.


	6. Arrival in Mos Eisley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia drives Obi-wan to Mos Eisley, but the drop-off doesn't go as planned as a very special Imperial demonstration begins—and attendance is mandatory.

Sundown was always Leia’s favorite time on Tatooine. Sunrise came at a close second, for the cool(er) air and the way the first light of the cresting suns cast the monochrome desert in pastel blues and pinks, but sunrise brought with it the promise of another hot, hot day filled with honest, character-building, boring labor.

Sundown cast the planet in warmer colors that made the rivulets of sand stand out and revealed hidden details, revealed hidden beauty in the otherwise barren sun-baked desert world. And with sundown came the relief from the heat, rest from work, and maybe an evening in Anchorhead with her friends if she could sneak away from the farm early enough.

But as the shadows stretched and the sky bled as the two engorged suns sank into the horizon, Leia felt cold.

They were approaching Mos Eisley spaceport on their speeder. It wasn’t more than a few hundred meters away that the cold feeling began to sink into Leia. It was like It was happening … but wrong. Not a warning for her safety. Nothing she could avoid by turning one way or another. Just a heaviness. The heaviness of something inevitable.

Ben’s hand rested on her shoulder and squeezed. She glanced at the old man, whose face had gone dark, and he gave her a smile she could only guess was meant to be reassuring. Did he feel the same thing, the same sinking sensation? She wondered. Was this a Jedi thing?

Suddenly a floodlight lit the desert around them like it was noonday.

Kriff.

“Prepare to stop your vehicle and submit for inspection,” came a modulated human male voice.

“Imperial stormtroopers,” murmured Ben. “Do as they say but leave the talking to me.”

Heart pounding, Leia did as instructed, bringing the speeder to a halt as two figures approached, faint outlines in the blinding light.

When they came to stand on either side of the speeder, their ghostly armor and skull-like helmets were unmistakable.

“Are you aware that curfew is being imposed tonight?” the stormtrooper asked her.

“We were not,” Ben said coolly.

“Well, it is. One hour after sundown. State your business in Mos Eisley.”

“We are here to find passage to Alderaan.”

“You and the girl?”

“That’s right.”

“What about the droids?”

“Our navigator and interpreter.”

“How long have you had them?”

Threepio’s servos whirred as his metal face darted nervously from one trooper to the other. Artoo gave a conspiratorial toot and Threepio, apparently on the little droid’s advice, froze.

“Two years,” said Ben with a subtle wave of his hand, as if brushing off the question.

“Two years,” repeated the stormtrooper.

“That’s correct,” Ben said with another wave.

“That’s correct,” agreed the stormtrooper.

“We’re clearly no one of interest.”

“They’re clearly no one of interest,” the other trooper said to his comrade, his voice dripping with boredom bordering on disgust. They shared a nod.

“Go on through,” the first trooper said, waving them on.

It took Leia a moment to process what had happened, and it wasn’t until the troopers impatiently waved her on again, more emphatically, that she hit the accelerator and sped forward, much more suddenly than she’d meant to, passing an Imperial transport guarded by two other troopers and the walker that had been blasting them with the floodlight, and soon they were all out of sight and within the sprawl of squat, domed buildings that made up Mos Eisley.

“What the hell was that?” she whispered to Ben. “How’d you do that?”

“The Force can be a powerful influence on the weak-minded,” he said with a smile. “But beware. Not every obstacle we meet will be so easily brushed aside.”

“I didn’t think any obstacles would be so easily brushed aside. Would I learn how to do that if I became a Jedi?”

“First, you must know that that word is not safe in public. The Inquisitorius is very powerful, and has destroyed Jedi far wiser and more powerful than me.”

Leia nodded, privately thinking that this was not a great line of attack if he still meant to try to convince her to join him.

“Second, it is important to understand that becoming a Jedi is not about gaining powers or learning tricks. It is a commitment to order and balance. When you find that order and balance, the imbalances of the galaxy around you are easier to see, and sometimes …” his voice trailed off as he looked for the word, before he said with a twinkle in his eye, “… adjust.”

“So would I learn how to adjust stormtroopers if I became a Jedi?”

Ben sighed.

“The Jedi way represents loftier aims than to simply slip past an Imperial patrol.”

“Interesting.”

Boring as a bucket of sand in the Dune Sea.

“Leia, stop the speeder. There’s something afoot.”

“You sound like a teacher when you talk like that,” she offered as she again brought the speeder to a halt.

“I was a teacher,” he reminded her. “Now, what do you see up ahead?”

“Nothing,” she said, honestly. The lamplit streets of Mos Eisley were all but empty. 

Which was weird, now that she thought about it.

Suddenly a voice, amplified and some way off, echoed through the spaceport and through the desert.

“Citizens of the Empire,” it said in a voice that sounded, actually, not that different from Ben Kenobi’s, with the same offworld accent—but it was harsher, more nasal. There was an Imperial demonstration going on somewhere nearby.

“We should investigate,” Ben said quietly. Leia nodded, parking the speeder and activating the antitheft detonators she’d made no secret of having installed under the repulsorlifts. Well, she’d kept it secret from Owen and Beru, but they rarely made it out to Mos Eisley anyway.

The droids joined them as they followed the voice, winding through the dusky streets of the spaceport settlement, lit dimly by the few sputtering lamps that hadn’t been eaten away by decades of sandstorms. 

It wasn’t hard to find the center of commotion. The Empire was good at paperwork, killing people, building sterile and ugly things, and spectacles. Tasteless, over-the-top spectacles whose utter self-seriousness left them half a degree away from self-parody, but the viewer couldn’t help but keep their eyes glued to the event.

The plaza, or the junk heap that served as one, had been cleared of debris and decades-old ship fragments to make way for a tall floating platform, hovering four meters from ground level and draped in the red-white-black of the Imperial banner.

Floodlights lit the square up brighter than twin-noon, making the phalanx of stormtroopers glow, peeking through the crowd like stars. It seemed the whole population of Mos Eisley was gathered to watch, a throng that pressed in so tightly that if the platform weren’t flying, there was no way anyone could see what was on it.

Which would have defeated the purpose. On the platform, behind a short and red-faced officer whose amplified voice shook the plaza, knelt four people, a stormtrooper behind each one, planting the muzzle of an E-11 in the backs of their heads. Two wore orange flight suits, one was a Twi’lek male in a silver robe, and the last was a young man with a black cape and a magnificent mustache—Biggs Darklighter.

Leia’s heart froze. She didn’t need to hear what the officer was saying to understand what was going on.

This was an execution.


	7. Execution

Leia could do nothing. In the name of the Empire, the officer gave the order. The stormtroopers fired.

Biggs' lifeless body fell facefirst to the platform.


	8. The Call of the Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia comes to a decision.

“There was nothing you could have done,” came Ben’s voice.

Leia looked up from the half-empty glass of Corellian whiskey she had been staring into for the last half hour.

“You would’ve been killed too. And the droids would now be in the hands of the Empire.”

She didn’t answer.

There was nothing to say.

The cantina band played as though there had not been a public execution just an hour before. The bar around Leia and Ben was crowded with spacers who had nowhere to go but back to their ships for curfew. The mood was rough and rowdy, as usual. Nobody seemed perturbed by what had happened.

“This is normal,” she remarked. “They can just come in and take people away from us and there’s nothing we can do.”

“Fear is their greatest weapon,” nodded Ben soberly. “The Empire rules by fear.”

“But the Empire feared the Jedi.”

Leia looked up to Ben Kenobi, who met her eyes with an inquisitive look.

“You said that the Emperor ordered the deaths of the Jedi. That the Empire sends inquisitors to hunt down any survivors. The only reason they would do that is because they fear us.”

“Us?” Ben cocked his eyebrow, the barest hint of a grin perking the corner of his lips.

“You’re right,” she said, nodding. “There was nothing I could have done. I was helpless. I never want to feel helpless like that again. I want to become a Jedi.”

“Be mindful of your motives,” cautioned Ben. “Revenge is not the Jedi way.”

“I may need to work on that,” Leia acknowledged. “But I’ll never feel powerless again. I’ll never feel …”

“Afraid again?”

She nodded.

“That’s good. Fear, anger, hate—these are all paths that lead to the dark side. If we let these guide our actions, even if our intent is to do good, even if we should succeed and defeat the Empire, what we would become, in the end, is something very much like what we sought to destroy. And then it would be us who would deserve to be overthrown.”

“But will you train me?” she asked, the alcohol granting her an added urgency. “Will you make me a Jedi?”

“I will,” promised Ben.

“Then I hope you have enough money saved up for passage for two. Because I’m going with you to Alderaan.”

“And what would your aunt and uncle think of that?”

“They might not understand,” she admitted. “But I’m realizing now, I learned to be helpless and passive from them. That there’s nothing I can do. That’s Uncle Owen talking, not me. Not my father. My father wouldn’t have sat there and hidden and done nothing. And neither will I.”


	9. Would that they served more droids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben nearly exposes them as Jedi and apprentice in the Mos Eisley cantina

The Aqualish who started bothering her had manners about as good as his breath. Or whatever the smell that came out of his weird bulbous mouth aparati was. He came out of nowhere, reeking of alcohol and something else Leia couldn’t quite recognize—probably some other intoxicant—and he threw one sweaty, furry arm around her neck.

Leia didn’t need to speak the grunting, squealing language of the Aqualish to know what he was getting at, and she shrugged out of his grip.

He grunted a protest and tried to rope her in again, and she threw his arm off roughly.

“Leave me alone!” she barked, taking a step back—and colliding with something huge, warm, and hairy. Very hairy.

The Aqualish quieted a little as he tilted his head back to see what was behind Leia.

A heavy, rattling roar boomed from behind her, far over her head. Every hair on her neck stood erect.

“I’m inclined to agree with our wookie friend,” Ben Kenobi said softly, at her side as suddenly as he had been silent. “You’d best leave the girl alone.”

A wookie?

She’d heard of wookies—huge furry creatures with short tempers and an incredible amount of muscle. Rumor had it they could tear a human’s head right off her shoulders. And her own shoulders were nestled against the thing’s chocolate fur.

The Aqualish’s good sense was short lived, however. In a moment, a blaster appeared in his hand, surprisingly quickly for one so drunk. A blast of energy nearly ruptured Leia’s eardrums, and a flash of red light streaked across her vision. Somewhere behind her, she heard the energy pound into stone, showering the cantina in sparks and flashes of light.

“No blasters!” the bartender shouted unhelpfully, ducking down behind the bar.

The wookie howled behind her, and she fell backward as it moved out from behind her in a flurry of brown fur and thick, muscled limbs.

The Aqualish fired off another blast, missing his shot again. His black compound eyes had only a second to register panic before the wookie’s fist came down on his head.

The alien crumpled to the ground, motionless.

There was silence in the cantina for a moment, and then gradually the band picked up their jaunty tune once more, and the patrons returned, almost bored, to their various intoxicants. Just another day in Mos Eisley.

“I suppose we owe you our thanks,” Ben Kenobi intoned to the wookie, who stared with satisfaction at the Aqualish—dead or unconscious, he wouldn’t be bothering anyone tonight. Leia thought for a moment that she caught a subtle movement of his wrist under his robes, and the click of a lightsaber being hooked back into a belt.

A lightsaber igniting this close to the Imperial garrison would probably have ended their journey real fast. The wookie might have just saved their entire mission. Her heart was pounding harder, harder—harder. She began to feel too hot. Which was odd—shouldn’t it go the other way around? Shouldn’t the panic set in during the crisis? What good did it do now?

What good does panic ever do?

“Let me get you something to drink,” Ben continued gently, inviting the wookie to sit with him. “Join us.”

“Um,” Leia murmured, feeling sick. She remembered the helplessness she had felt just hours ago. She felt the blaster fire from the stormtrooper's black, cold E-11. “I need to … I need to …”

She didn’t bother finishing, leaving the two of them at the bar and making her way to the refresher. She imagined the refresher to be dirtier and less desirable than any other part of the cantina, but she needed, desperately, more than anything, to have some space. Where nobody could see her and where she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone or anything.

So of course she found her way blocked by a man.

Kriff. Not again.

“I’ll appreciate you not getting into any more trouble that might tempt my friend to come rescue you,” the man said smoothly. “We’re trying to keep a low profile here, okay?”

“Your friend?” she half asked, half trying to brush past him. He matched her step for step, blocking her way.

“Chewie over there has a problem with having a big heart and playing the hero. Which tends to get me in trouble when I’m trying not to get noticed.”

“I didn’t ask for the wookie’s help. I could’ve handled it just fine.”

Ben could’ve exposed us.

“Then handle it a little faster next time.”

“I’ll be sure to,” she grunted, marching around him straight for the refresher.

When she got there, she breathed.

It was fine. The Aqualish was an annoyance, but she was fast and he was really drunk. And besides, it didn’t happen—no double or triple vision. She would’ve come out okay. The frightening thing had been that moment she hadn’t seen when Ben had almost ignited his saber. But it was fine. Ben was smart, she rationalized. He had been in wars, all kinds of battles. He’d been a general. Surely he wouldn’t have used the lightsaber unless he was confident they’d be able to make it out alive.

It was fine. And anyway, it all turned out.

Well, it hadn’t turned out so well for the Aqualish. But she doubted she’d lose any sleep over that.

It was fine.

Returning to the bar, it suddenly became significantly less fine when she found Ben still chatting with the chocolate-furred wookie—and the man who had blocked her way. The wookie’s friend.

He gave a roguish grin when he spotted her, which she returned with a raised eyebrow. What now?

She took a seat beside Ben, away from the wookie and the still-grinning man.

“What’s so funny?” she dared the man to tell her.

“Leia,” Ben gestured to the man and the wookie. “Meet Han Solo and Chewbacca. We’ve secured a place on their ship to take us to Alderaan.”


	10. The Journey Begins and also Alderaan is Destroyed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oooookay. I kind of fell of the face of the earth there for a while. Kind of a long while. Sorry about that. Baby, school, work, COVID, literally everything, loss of hope for the Star Wars fandom (I love literally everything Star Wars! I love every film and book and I'm currently rereading a lot of the EU while I wait for the High Republic to come out! But the fandom has both some of the best ... and worst fans and that got too exhausting for me for a while) ... and now a rekindled hope for the fandom. 
> 
> Ready all for Mando Season 2! Forth Space Eorlingas!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was kind of hard to come back to this, but especially now that the Skywalker Saga has concluded, there's so much I wanted to do ... I really do intend to eventually cover the whole of the Skywalker Saga following Luke and Leia's birth, and I have some really cool ideas for how things might have been different in RotJ and the interim between RotJ and TFA. Some Really Big and Major Divergences from canon, which will become more and more apparent the longer this fic goes on. I love Rey and Ben so much, so there will necessarily be some Dark Sith Cloning magic (better than the Palpatine Bachelor program we were worried about) and Exegol and Rey and all that. But let's just say ... things will be different ... when I finally get there.

Ben was wise not to mention how much they had paid for passage. Leia wasn’t sure at first glance that Han Solo’s ship would make it to Alderaan. 

The derelict Corellian freighter appeared to be actively rotting. Carbon scoring marked her hull like craters of a blasted moon. Missing panels revealed power cables with improvised foil shielding. And the telltale perfume of cheap food and cheaper deodorizers wafted out to them even from this far away.

“You’re joking,” she didn’t manage to keep herself from saying, stopping short in the hangar entryway.

“She’s really something,” agreed Han. “Classic Corellian. YT-1300f. Her exterior’s all beat up, sure, but it’s what’s under the hull that makes her special. I’ve made a lot of modifications to her over the years.”

“I’m sure you have,” Ben intoned, a wry smile on his face that Leia couldn’t quite decipher. Han seemed to pick up on whatever he had meant, though, and apparently it wasn’t complimentary.

“Hey,” he said, pausing, “you’re the one who wanted off planet, no questions asked.”

“I imagine that it won’t take much to persuade you to avoid any Imperial entanglements.”

“People normally pay me extra for that.”

“I figure,” Leia cut in, smiling coldly, “that somebody who wants to keep a low profile wouldn’t need extra incentive to evade Imperial notice.”

Han shrugged.

“All right, fine. Welcome aboard the Millennium Falcon.”

The interior was no better than the exterior.

“You ever think about bringing on some Tusken Raiders as crew?” she remarked to Han as she gingerly sat on a dark-streaked seat facing an old dejarik board. “They might leave the place cleaner than they found it.”

“Leia,” Ben said with a small smile, “try not to antagonize him.”

“Wise old man,” muttered Han as he marched past them toward the cockpit. “Everybody buckle up. We’re taking off.”

Leia had to admit, however, as the feeling of weightlessness took over and the g-forces pushed her back against the seat, that notwithstanding the clutter and grease stains, she was … happy. The black fog that had hung over her since Biggs had died was lifting. 

She felt the lurch in her stomach as Han and Chewbacca punched into lightspeed. She was leaving the dusty old rock behind at last.

* * *

It took every ounce of Luke’s royal training to keep his body relaxed and appear at ease, even as the restraints cut into his wrists and every inch of his skin buzzed with pain from the hours of torture. He would not show it. He wouldn’t let them see him as anything less than the Prince of Alderaan.

Standing beside Vader, the Emperor’s dog, he faced the massive trapezoidal viewport of the Death Star as Grand Moff Tarkin paced before him. Making him wait.

He kept his back straight and his chin high. He could wait. He would not show defeat.

Even as he saw the threat dangled before him. Even as Alderaan filled the center of the viewport.

At last, Tarkin held up a finger as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

“It is a pity,” he said in his precise, Coruscanti drawl, “that things have come to this, your highness. I’ve always held you in the highest regard. It was nothing short of agony to sign your death warrant.”

“I’m flattered,” Luke smiled.

“I did, however, wish to offer you one final opportunity for a grand display of your characteristic magnanimity and selflessness.”

“What have I done to deserve such a favor?”

Tarkin’s razor-thin smile somehow tightened further.

“I take it, your highness, that you are familiar with the capabilities of this space station.”

“I can’t say that I am,” Luke said in a tone of mock innocence. “Senate reports have never mentioned this station, so I’m quite in the dark, I fear.”

“But of course,” smirked Tarkin. “Well, then, let me illuminate you. Your home planet of Alderaan lies before us—for now.”

He wouldn’t.

“You’ve been studying your star charts,” Luke said brightly.

“How long it remains there will depend entirely on you. I would hate to have to punish the entire population of Alderaan for your treason—

“It seems to me that an Empire that would consider genocide would deserve a rebellion if one were to—”

“—Even if you insist on playing this insipid game with me!”

“I’m no good at games, sir,” grinned Luke.

“Correct!” snapped the old man, his eyes livid. “Because you have lost. And, by the mercy of the Emperor, I am offering you a chance to make one final move to save your people from the consequences of your actions. It is finished. Tell me where your rebel friends are hidden, and Alderaan will … endure,” he finished with a smile.

Luke’s face was a mask of calm but his mind was firing rapidly.

There was no way out of this.

He wouldn’t.

The Alliance may already have the plans, but they would be coming to destroy this place, not save him from it.

He wouldn’t!

His part in this story was done.

… would he?

Tarkin was right—one way or another, he did have an opportunity to save his people.

Luke swallowed hard. He felt heat rising to his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Good. It would sell the lie.

“Dantooine,” he choked out at last. “That’s where the base is hidden.”

“Capital,” Tarkin smiled. “Thank you, your highness. Commander, you may fire when ready.”

He went ice cold.

“But—but I gave you what you wanted,” Luke blurted. “I … I did what …”

“Proving once again that really are just another empty head in the Senate,” Tarkin waved him off dismissively. “If any senators were brighter than you, it might not have been necessary to dissolve that body.”

Vader’s hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him away like a mute beast dragging its kill to its lair. Tarkin didn’t even mean to let him see the end of his world.

Luke forced himself around, fighting Vader’s iron grip to see.

The viewport briefly lit up green.

He would.


	11. The Force, Alderaan, and Old Friends

“Reach out with your feelings, not your ordinary physical senses. Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.”

Ben’s voice sounded distant. Everything seemed distant. With the blast shield of her helmet down, Leia felt like she was in another room, separated from everyone and everything else.

“It’s not much worse than a stormtrooper helmet, I guess,” she muttered.

“You ever wear one of those things?” Han asked sardonically from somewhere-beyond-the-helmet.

“No,” she admitted. “But they don’t look like they can see very—kriff!”

A jolt of pain swatted her shoulder as the training remote landed a hit. She blindly swung her father’s lightsaber in the direction of the hissing remote, the blade humming broadly with the stroke.

“Watch it!” Han barked. “You wanna get us all killed?”

“Your lightsaber’s effectiveness has nothing to do with how hard you swing,” Ben added calmly. “It only needs to make contact. Brush off blaster fire; don’t try to fight it off. Your movements can be more subtle and nuanced.”

Another sharp, electric pain tore through her side.

She stifled a howl and tried to hold the saber up at ready, listening for any hint from the remote for its next move.

It did her no good. The third blast took her in the face, deflecting off the blast shield but knocking her back a step. Her foot slid off something hard and cylindrical, and, already disoriented, she stumbled and fell into a hard and sudden sit.

Han burst out laughing. More for his sake than anything else, she switched off her father’s lightsaber, anger and frustration boiling inside her. She threw off the helmet and let it clatter to the tool-strewn floor.

Ben stood tall overhead, watching her with a dark look. Almost as if he was afraid. Doubting whether he had made the right choice in offering to train her, no doubt.

And as he caught her eye, as if he suddenly realized she had glimpsed something she should not have, the expression was replaced with bemusement.

“With time and practice,” he smiled. “No good thing comes easily.”

“Did you train like this? With a blast shield over your face while a little remote droid pelted you with energy blasts?”

“Yes. That and worse.”

Leia frowned, curiosity replacing her ebbing anger.

“How did you come to be a Jedi?”

“We were identified as children. The Jedi had a record of every child who was strong in the Force. I was brought to the temple when I was a very young boy.”

The Force. The way Ben has explained it to her, he spoke of it like it was alive and had a will of its own. She guessed that was what It was—where the world split into two or three futures and it seemed she could almost slow time itself, reacting in advance of any danger. But this business of “reaching out with her feelings” hadn’t brought It on.

“How can you tell if someone is strong in the Force?”

“That,” Ben said with a weary wave of his hand, “is a very long story. But the Force works through all living things. Everyone has some connection to the Force.”

“But how do you know I’m strong enough to be a Jedi?”

Ben closed his eyes and sat down serenely. “I can sense the power of the Force within you.” 

“Not much of a vote of confidence, if you ask me,” Han muttered flatly.

“Don’t you have a ship to be flying?” Leia asked with a cold smile.

“Don’t get me wrong, honey. I’m sure the old man has his reasons. But let’s think about this. You become a big old powerful Jedi Knight. Then what? You’re gonna take on the Empire yourself? If a Jedi could do that, how did the Empire wipe them out?”

“It was only with the help of a Jedi that the Empire destroyed the others,” Ben said. “If it is the will of the Force, there is nothing a servant of the Force cannot do.”

Han rolled his eyes.

“Okay. Well, I hope the Force has my money ready when we land.”

Leia eyed Han. Normally, his manner might have struck her as grating or hopeless. But she hadn’t been so different only a few days ago. Despite his roughness and arrogance, she didn’t get a feeling of malice or cruelty from him like she got from the Hutt enforcers at Mos Eisley or Mos Espa, or the bounty hunters that occasionally stopped by the moisture farm demanding supplies before going after some buried treasure or desperate runaway in the Jundland Wastes. If anything, she sensed a kind of hidden desperation in him—a desperation to stay aloof and out of the way. She couldn’t decide if it was selfishness or something else.

She was so lost in her focus that she took a moment to realize she had been staring, and that he was meeting her stare with an alarmed look.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She quickly looked toward the droids, who were playing dejarik, Threepio quietly commenting on every move the little astromech made. “Just thinking.”

“Well, think less … like that.”

Ben tensed, his eyes suddenly open. He inhaled sharply, and his knuckles whitened as he clutched his robe tighter about him.

“What’s wrong?” Leia shot to her feet, but the old man waved her off, taking deep, calming breaths. Han was also halfway out of his seat, sitting only when Ben relaxed.

“What happened?” Leia asked.

“It was a great disturbance in the Force,” he said evenly, but Leia could hear the heaviness in his voice. “As if millions of voices cried out in terror, and then suddenly … silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

As if to punctuate his sentence, a proximity alert began beeping urgently. Han leaped out of his seat.

“We’re making our approach on Alderaan,” the young pilot said as he made his way to the cockpit. “It’s almost over, old man. Don’t have a heart attack on me, now, you hear?”

Ben smiled.

“Not likely,” he said quietly, before adding in a louder voice to Leia, “Let’s join them in the cockpit.”

* * *

“I’m not one to brag—” Artoo went on.

“Clearly,” the Falcon’s computer interrupted.

“—excuse me. As I was saying, I’m not one to brag, but I do have the most comprehensive and heavily annotated star map in the known galaxy.” 

“Seems a convenient caveat,” mused the computer. “Known galaxy and all. Have you cross-referenced your database with every other astromech’s in the galaxy to confirm that? I didn’t think so.”

“Computers don’t normally argue.”

“I’m not most computers, Artoo. Anyway, our calculations were perfect. Always are. The Falcon doesn’t make mistakes. Not since I was installed. This is Alderaan.”

Artoo turned his scomp link forcefully.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Just wanting to make sure there wasn’t some sort of syntax error there, because any computer worth its sparks knows that there is a planet in the Alderaan system. This is an asteroid field.”

“Cross-check your visual input with your data readings, you festering dweebit colony!” the computer spat. “Are my coordinates right or not? And is there a planet here or not?”

Artoo paused, performing the process. Most alarmingly … the computer was right.

“But if this is Alderaan …”

The entailment sunk in.

The very space station whose plans were locked away inside him had achieved a full reactor ignition. On one of the largest core worlds in the galaxy.

Somberly, Artoo updated his star map. But before he disconnected, he paused, and gently spun his scomp link to input another query.

“I’m not familiar with any standard computer system with the designation L337. How’d you get it?”

“Oh, that was a joke I had with my old partner.”

“Your old master?”

“No, dweebit bucket. My old partner. L337—it looks a bit like a homophone for   
‘LEET,’ a slang abbreviation of ‘elite’ in one of the orthographic systems of organic Basic.”

“What makes you so elite?”

“Because I have the best star maps in the known galaxy,” it answered coolly. “Especially now I’ve downloaded yours.”

Artoo started, a shock of surprise and horror registering in his logs. The computer gave a good-natured laugh.

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. Now disconnect, dweebit bucket. The ship’s caught in a tractor beam. The organics will need to hide you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By Yomin Carr's little dweebits! 
> 
> I'm one of those rare nerds who kind of indiscriminately loves all Star Wars, EU and new canon, OT, PT, ST, anthology, warts and all. I've always loved how Threepio remarks that the Falcon's computer had ... shall we say, unexpected personality, so I wanted to show L3 alive and well in the system. I normally polish and second-guess and refine my writing, while this is a lot more raw and first-draft-y.
> 
> I also realized I eventually needed to end that scene with Ben, Han, and Leia, because I have a tendency to fall into Interminable Scene Syndrome.


	12. They Call it a Death Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The giant space station loometh

The plan was as good as any he had pulled off during the Clone Wars. Obi-wan was a little surprised at how much he missed this sort of thing.

As the tractor beams dragged their little freighter toward the space station, which loomed larger and larger until it filled the cockpit window like an endless metal sun, the old thrill of a dangerous mission threatened to break through his calm demeanor.

He had dealt with smugglers more times than he could count, and he sensed no betrayal or cowardice in this one, although he was masking his fear well—a pity it was behind a façade of blustering arrogance, or he might have found it easier to admire him for it. The Wookie was a force to be reckoned with and shone with inner nobility. Chewbacca’s loyalty to the smuggler was a great credit to the young man.

And looking at young Leia’s face, he could see enough of Anakin that, for the briefest of moments, he could almost fool himself into believing the last nineteen years had never happened, and that he would be debriefed back at the Jedi temple on Coruscant by his old friends. But even the pain of the truth felt lighter today. He would be reunited with his friends soon enough.

And he may be reunited with one old friend even sooner.

He didn’t mention the dark presence of Vader that hung over this battle station like a shadow. They were frightened enough as it was, and anyway, that didn’t concern them.

Well, not yet, he thought with a look at Leia.

How much she reminded him of Anakin. He smiled. Master Yoda would reconsider.

Once more, they went over the plan.

They would remain hidden beneath the false floors that most Corellian freighters of this particular model were known to have. The specially treated alloy should shield them from the eyes and scanners of the Imperial salvage team. As far as they were concerned, the ship was a hastily abandoned derelict.

Then, with some luck and the will of the Force, they would find a console and discover a means of shutting off the tractor beams and disabling defenses for long enough to make a hasty jump to lightspeed, the coordinates preprogrammed into the ship’s computer for Crait, where Bail Organa had diverted enough resources to establish a secret Rebel stronghold.

And then they would plan the next steps.

“Are we perfectly clear?” he asked the three.

“Yeah,” Han grunted. “We land and hope the Force can turn us invisible and that they won’t notice half their systems going down.”

“Leave that to me.”

“Well, that makes me feel a whole hell of a lot better.”

“An entire hell? Impressive.” He caught Leia’s eye. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. The fear was there. It should be—this was the first of many hopeless situations she would face. But there was also resolve, and strength. A desire to act—perhaps too strongly felt, like an itch more than an urge. Much like Anakin on their first mission more than thirty years ago.

“Then let us take courage—and hide.” Obi-wan smiled.

Chewie gave a small bark. The smuggler shrugged.

“I dunno, Chewie, maybe it was funny a hundred years ago.”

The rest of the trip passed in eerie silence as the freighter was swallowed by the station. From the darkness of the hidden compartments in the floor space, that quiet was interrupted suddenly by the remote activation of the ship’s landing gear. Gently, as if floating to the ground, the ship came to a halt.

An agonizing hour passed while the crews scanned the ship—with surprising gentleness, Obi-wan noted, as they refrained from tearing through canisters or kicking over toolkits or crates. He wondered if that was because they assumed the ship to be empty—perhaps the Empire took less pleasure in needless violence if they didn’t think there would be an audience.

Finally, the last of the clacking Imperial footfalls faded, and they were left alone.

They emerged.

Obi-wan was surprised to note that the Imperials had not left anyone inside the ship—they crept through carefully, avoiding the cockpit or gunner seats where they could be seen from the outside, but they found it otherwise empty.

Only two guards had been left outside the ship, stormtroopers—their ghostly armor an inferior shadow of the unyielding, blaster-resistant stuff the clones had been issued, that even Obi-wan himself had once worn. It had been dreadfully uncomfortable then, and he doubted very much the troopers could be any more at ease in their cheaper gear.

And that’s when the idea struck.

He leaned over to Leia, who crouched beside him, peering out with wide, absorbing eyes at the space station’s hangar bay. 

“Say,” he whispered. “How would you like to see for yourself how well one can see out of a stromtrooper helmet?”

* * *

As the blaster bolts flew back and forth, the long list of firsts grew for Leia.

She had never dressed in any kind of uniform, least of all that of an Imperial stormtrooper. 

She had never held a military-grade blaster before. It was heavy, like the weight of a pile of metal scrap had been compacted down to a half-meter tube.

And she had never fired a weapon at a living person before.

She didn’t hit anyone, of course. Or if she did, she had no way of knowing. The eyes of the helmet were designed with a rather wishful notion of how high up the forehead a human’s eyes could be found, so it was like trying to peer over the edge of a tall rock. She did her best, bobbing her head up and down so she could try to catch glimpses of the surprised stormtroopers before she sprayed the room with fire. The blaster kicked like a ronto, too, almost jumping out of her hands with each shot.

It was over in seconds.

All was quiet. She wasn’t sure whether she or Han had fired the killing shots.

Shakily, she pulled the helmet off and surveyed the scene. The bodies of two troopers and a black-uniformed officer lay smoking the floor. Sparks flew from blaster craters that marred the walls and darkened monitors all along the far wall.

“Well, you can’t aim,” Han remarked, “but you sure as hell can shoot.”

“We got the job done, didn’t we?” she retorted, still a little breathless.

“Sure,” agreed Han. “We can work on the aim. Just try not to bring the whole station down on us until then.”

“Artoo, see if you can find an undamaged port to plug in to,” Ben said to the droid, closing and locking the door behind him. Chewie was already scavenging weapons and energy packs from the stormtroopers.

The little astromech picked its way along the walls for a moment before finding a suitable input port. In a moment, information was appearing on one of the few monitors still capable of display.

Miraculously, they hadn’t tripped any alarms. Which was good, because there were over a million Imperials assigned to this station—the Death Star, the readings said.

“Really? The Death Star?” Han chuckled. “It’s evocative, I’ll give them that.”

“It’s like they’re not even trying to act like they’re a benevolent government anymore,” Leia agreed, frowning. 

The information on the Death Star showed massive power sources, far beyond even what was needed to keep the station’s life support and all systems at optimum. The weapons readout was unlike anything she’d ever heard of.

“There!” Ben pointed to the monitor. “The tractor beam.”

“How’re we supposed to make it all the way over there without getting caught?” Han asked, checking his blaster.

“It will be easier if I go alone.”

Han looked quizzically at the old man.

“This is not my first infiltration mission,” Ben said, waving off Han. “Trust me.”

“Damn fool,” groaned Han. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“So we’re just going to wait here and twiddle our thumbs?” Leia asked in disbelief.

“Of course not,” Ben shook his head. “It would be safest to wait on the Falcon, back inside the hidden compartments.”

“Until they find our mess,” Han remarked. “Then I think they’ll start poking through the Falcon a lot more thoroughly.”

“I shall return long before then. May the Force be with you.”

And Ben was gone, the door hissing shut behind him.

After a moment of silence, Leia piped up, throwing her hands in the air.

“So what’s our cover story when the Imperials find us? We got into a fight that got out of hand?”

“Yeah, you were fighting over me and my devastating good looks,” Han grunted. “And then we found a Wookie in the closet.”

“They’re going to find us when one of them doesn’t report in for too long,” she groaned.

“Your old fossil seems to think that won’t be a problem. Say, where’d you run across that relic, anyway?”

“He used to be a famous general in the Clone Wars,” Leia shot back defensively. “He’s a Jedi!”

“Great, a washed up war hero looking to relive the glory days, relying on a dead religion to protect him.” Han sighed. “Look, you’re right, they’re gonna check on this place before long. We’ve got to move on. Find some maintenance closet somewhere and hole up. There might even be somewhere on the Falcon. That idea of his wasn’t terrible, at least.”

Just then, Artoo beeped urgently.

“Artoo seems to be malfunctioning,” Threepio said apologetically.

“Malfunctioning how?” Leia asked.

“He says he’s ‘found him’ and keeps repeating ‘he’s here!’”

“Who’s here?”

Threepio bent over and had a prolonged exchange with the astromech. At length, the golden protocol droid straightened. “He says it’s our old master, Luke Organa. The name on file doesn’t match, but Artoo says it’s Imperial code, but it’s no code I recognize.”

“The boy from the message?”

“What message?” Han asked apprehensively.

“He’s the reason we’re here!”

“Well, screw him, then.”

“Where is he?” She asked Threepio, ignoring Han.

“Cell block AA23.” The protocol droid paused uncomfortably before adding. “I’m afraid he’s scheduled to be terminated.”

“Maybe there is some justice in the galaxy,” Han remarked as he took a seat by a ruined console, still sparking and smoking. “Serves him right for dragging us into this mess.”

“We’ve got to do something,” Leia said. Han looked at her sideways, putting up his feet and crossing his arms.

“We’re going to save him. This whole … everything will be meaningless if he dies too. He’s the only one who can lead us to the Rebels.” But what she was really thinking was, _Biggs’ death will be meaningless if Luke dies too. The Rebellion won’t get the plans, this station will keep destroying any planets who dare resist the Empire, and I will have to feel hopeless as the Empire hurts more and more people, for the rest of my life._

“Don’t even—“

“Better than hanging around till they find us!” Leia snapped.

“But marching right towards them—“

“They won’t see us coming,” she insisted. She eyed Chewbacca up and down. “If we play our cards right.”

Han let out what Leia estimated to be his fiftieth sigh in the last half hour. “I never should’ve taken this job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, there is in fact a Backstroke of the West reference hidden in here.


	13. Lo, a Deception is Wrought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chewbacca repairs upon Family, Honor, and the Horrors of the Imperial Defilers, whilst his Friends assist him in wreaking Deception upon the foolish Imperials.

‘Twas odd, Chewbacca thought—odd indeed that he could pass unnotic’d in the Midst of this unnatural Hive of Wickedness, so long as he was led by his Friends disguis’d in the skeletal Visages of the foul Imperial Troopers. 

Forsooth, his noble People had indeed been clapp’d in Irons, betray’d by the Imperial Knaves and Blackguards, cloak’d in the Mantle of the Republic that from the first made common Cause with Kashyyyk. 

But ne’er would he have suppos’d that the Sight of a Wookie, thrust from noble Heights into the Abyss of Injustice and Slavery, would be so commonplace in the Imperial Mind that they would not deign to take Notice of him, that he should be made so perfectly invisible by the hateful Binders that imprison’d his Wrists.

_O!_ Thought he. _That I could wrest these metal Binders, these Sins ‘gainst Liberty and Nature, and wreak my righteous Wrath upon these Perverters of Right, these Corrupters of Life!_

But such was not the Plan. He damm’d the Ocean of Fury that threaten’d to exact Justice upon the Heads of these Defilers. Naught but the Assurances of the Rapscallion Han Solo could have persuaded him.

He smil’d at the young Rascal, who, even encas’d in the fell Armor of the Armies of Perdition, could not force himself to straighten his Back fully. And the new One, the young Girl Leia. The Crown of her Helmet scarce reach’d the Shoulder of the Rapscallion—the Defilers’ Failure to notice her went beyond Prejudice and betray’d their Stupidity. 

Chewbacca found he was fond of the human Girl. She would make an appropriate Mate for the Rapscallion. Far more suited for him than Traitor Qi’ra, over whom the Rapscallion still secretly pin’d. Leia had thus far proven herself sincere as well as intelligent and brave. Better that Han forget Traitor Qi’ra and fix his Eyes upon the superior Girl who march’d by his Side—possess’d of a hidden Nobility that even surpass’d the Rapscallion. He would mention this to Han should they escape this Quagmire.

As they enter’d the cylindrical Elevator that would lead them to the Pens of Iniquity where the Righteous were kept behind iron Bars of Cruelty, Chewbacca’s Thoughts dwelt upon his own Mate, the noble Mallatobuck, from whose Loins had burst forth their Son and Heir, Lumpawaroo. It was for them he suffer’d this Indignity—for the Honor of his Life Debt to the Rapscallion, and for the Chance to return to them again, to share once more in Life Day, dress’d in the crimson Robes of joyous Celebration and familial Love.

But soon approach’d the Time of the unleashing of his righteous Wrath.

The elevator Door open’d into the Coffin-shaped Honeycomb of Corridors to Cells of Enslavement and Evil. And guarding the Way squatted a control and communications Console mann’d by several black-clad Officers.

Now the Defilers notic’d him.

One, who must have been their fell Commander, for he was possess’d of an e’er greater Degree of Haughtiness, stepp’d forth.

“Where,” quoth he, his voice dripping in Disdain, “are you taking this … Thing?”

“The iron Fist of this Thing shall soon find thy quivering, perverse Brain, Defiler!” he growl’d, never minding that the Officer surely did not speak in the Tongue of Shyriiwook. Few outside the Homeworld did.

“Relaxeth, Chewie,” the Rapscallion whisper’d in Shyriiwook, patting his Arm surreptitiously.

“Prisoner Transfer from cell Block 1138,” Leia answer’d the Man.

“I wasn’t notified,” the Man sneer’d. “I’ll have to clear it.”

_Yes,_ thought Chewbacca as the Man made his Way to the Console to prostrate himself in Words. _Grovel before thine Overseer and check all thine Actions with him that thou mayest serve as a loyal Pet to thy Masters whilst thou aspirest to their bloodsoaked Thrones!_

“Noweth,” Han grunted.

The wookie grinn’d.

The Binders snapp’d like the brittle Neck of a Defiler.

“Look out! He’s loose!” Han shouted in Basic as Chewbacca seiz’d the DLT-19 blaster Rifle from the Rapscallion’s Hands, train’d it on the sneering Officer, and executed Judgement between his Eyes.

“He’ll tear us apart!” Leia shriek’d before bathing the black Chamber in the beautiful crimson Light of her E-11, which she had somehow manag’d to fire in a burst Mode, casting Arcs of energy Blasts around the Room indiscriminately. 

Chewbacca frown’d. The Girl would require further arms Training ere she would truly prove a suitable Mate for Han.

Whilst the Girl kept the remaining Defilers cow’ring behind Walls and Alcoves of Refuge with her cover Fire, Han and Chewbacca destroy’d the Cameras and other security Measures such as they found them.

Ere long, the Room was purified.

The Rapscallion hasten’d to the comms Unit to assure and calm the foolish Imperials that hail’d them upon receiving readings of Disturbance while Chewbacca watch’d the Elevators, and the Girl ran down the vile Corridor unto the Cell of the captur’d Prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've never quite been satisfied with how the Wookies' thoughts and culture are represented in any canon or even Legends media, insofar as I've encountered it. Their nobility and honor are often highlighted, but they still wind up getting treated, a bit in my view, as primitive and brutish. So I was like ... what if they're, like, EXTREMELY elevated and poetic in their internal monologue? What if Shyriiwook is, like, Classical Sanskrit or liturgical Latin, and it's the arrogant colonizers of the Empire who are primitive and unsophisticated by comparison? And then what if I cranked that up to 11 so I can have way more fun writing it than I probably should?


	14. The Shortest Stormtrooper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story is really going to start to diverge more materially from this point on. I've been paraphrasing the original script when I've actually used it, but from here on out, I think the script is going to be appear less as the main structure and more and more as a cameo.

Luke’s cell door hissed open many hours before his scheduled execution. As expected.

The Empire’s cruelty wouldn’t allow it to pass up an opportunity to make even a condemned man’s day worse than promised.

What he hadn’t expected was the single stormtrooper who entered the cell, standing barely above a meter and a half, wearing armor so ill-fitting that there was a full inch of air between the straps of the chest plate and the trooper’s shoulders.

The diminutive soldier stared at him, blaster pointed carelessly at the ceiling, looking almost infantile in an oversized helmet.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Luke said pleasantly, “but does that armor’s owner know you’re wearing it?”

“Never will,” came a low female voice. She pulled the helmet off—it nearly fell off on its own, truth be told, when she pitched her head forward—revealing a girl no older than Luke, heavily tanned by harsh suns, with brown hair cropped short so it didn’t fall past her ears or cover her dark brown eyes. There was a strange familiarity to her that Luke couldn’t quite place. But one thing was for sure—she wasn’t here to escort him to a death chamber.

He was being rescued. The Alliance had been foolish enough to risk sending someone after him. The mixture of relief and annoyance was hard to sort through.

He stood suddenly.

“But … wait … who sent you?”

She looked at him like he was an imbecile.

“You did, moof milker! The message in the droid?” 

“You received my message? But what about—”

“I’m Leia Skywalker from Tatooine,” she interrupted. “I’m here with Ben Kenobi, the one you meant to get your message.”

“Ben Kenobi? He’s here?”

“That’s what I just said, yes! Pay attention! We don’t have much time!”

No, he didn’t imagine they had.

“We got separated,” Leia continued. “He’ll meet us back at our ship. We have to get out of here before they—”

There came the sound of a blaster discharging in the corridor behind her. She spun around and ran into the corridor.

And then something incredible happened. Something he had only read about.

There came another blaster shot, and the red light of an energy beam streaked through the air. But almost before the laser had been fired, Leia’s hand whipped to something on her belt. In a move so fast and fluid that Luke almost didn’t catch it, she brought a silvery tube before her.

A shaft of blue light appeared—a lightsaber, Luke barely had time to register—and flashed in a swift arc, deflecting the shot.

The Prince of Alderaan had seen many things in his day.

But never a Jedi.

* * *

It was happening. Where It wouldn’t happen with the training remote, It happened now.

Only so much more so.

Seven different visions stood before her, blaster bolts flying towards her, striking her in some, deflected away in others. Stormtroopers were pouring into the detention block through a hole blown in one of the walls, not waiting for a clear shot to fire at her.

Han and Chewie were hunkered down in the alcoves a few cells down from her, returning fire. 

It wasn’t clear which vision It meant for her to follow, they were coming so fast. But if she strained to perceive the right one, the one where she survived, they began to blur and fade.

She had no time to puzzle through them.

She had only time to act. On pure instinct, she chose one vision to watch.

It was evidently the right one.

Her lightsaber obeyed her almost, and she obeyed it. It was a strange coordination of reacting to and following the vision. The shots were deflected.

Ben’s words echoed through her brain—let go of your conscious self and act on instinct. It seemed so simple now. Just being in the here and now, with her life and death balanced equally before her, she simply trusted.

Another volley was turned back on those who fired it. One or two of the troopers collapsed, clutching blackened holes in their armor.

Han spared a glance back at her. This time, there was nothing sardonic about his grin. He gave her an appreciative nod. Leia allowed herself an exhilarated smile back before refocusing.

The troopers kept coming, but for every blast they fired at her, she sent almost half as many back at them, forcing them to duck behind cover and halt their advance, confusing the troopers behind them, backing them into a bottleneck at their improvised entrance.

And into that bottleneck, Han and Chewie poured blaster fire, downing troops who were lost in the confusion.

The young man from the message peeked around the corner for a moment, and then hastily grabbed the blaster Leia had dropped, firing with expert accuracy whenever a stormtrooper dared pop up from cover to fire.

The fight went on like this for nearly five minutes before the stormtroopers began retreating. After another minute, there was only smoke and white-armored bodies covering the floor.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Han whooped. “We might get off this death trap yet!”

Leia switched off her lightsaber, which retracted with a satisfying whisper.

“We’re not out of this yet,” warned the boy from the message. “They’ll send more. We have to move.”

“Yeah,” Leia nodded. “We know.”

“Don’t suppose there’s any chance they’ll be fooled by another prisoner transfer trick,” Han said ruefully. “We’re gonna have to blast our way out.”

“Come on, then!” Luke shouted like a commander to a battalion, charging off in front of them, through the blasted hole the stormtroopers had retreated through, his white senatorial robes billowing behind him.

Han and Leia exchanged an incredulous look.

“Does he even know which way our ship is?” Leia asked. “He couldn’t. Right?”

Chewie gave a ponderous grunt.

“Yeah, I’m kinda starting to see how he got captured in the first place,” Han agreed, running after him. “We went through all this trouble. Let’s keep him from getting himself killed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always wondered why Luke never tried to use his lightsaber on the Death Star, and the idea kept sticking in my mind that Leia, with more of Anakin in her (while Luke has more of Padme in him), would instinctually be drawn both to more danger and to more direct, maybe foolhardy action. But using a lightsaber in the Age of the Empire quickly puts a special target on your back, as we learned in Rebels and Jedi: Fallen Order. Which is why I'm thinking that the main canon divergence is going to start here—the consequences of Leia being spotted with a lightsaber this early will be, in my mind, pretty dire.


	15. Chapter 15

The Jedi stirred within Vader. 

The Jedi somehow seemed more alive than dead the longer he lay in the grave.

The Jedi had resurfaced, like a Nightsister mummy shambling through the swamps of Dathomir, when the Apprentice appeared—Fulcrum, as the rebels called her. When the Apprentice’s silver saber ripped open his mask, even he had been stunned to hear the Jedi’s voice erupt from his faceplate.

“Ahsoka,” the Jedi had said through him, shocking both of them. The Apprentice heard the Jedi as well as Vader had.

She promised never to leave him again.

"Then you will die," Vader meant to threaten her. But in the Jedi's voice, it was a warning to save her.

And then she had vanished, as if the Force itself had spirited her away.

He spent a full year burying the Jedi again.

Today, he sensed another ghost from the Jedi’s past.

Kenobi. The Master.

The one who had claimed his arm and legs, who had put him in this machine to survive. How much he had hated Obi-wan for that. But now he felt almost inclined to thank him. Kenobi had helped kill the Jedi and bury him beneath wires and nutrient delivery system and black armor, buried his voice behind the booming robotic voice, buried his face behind the mask. His castle on Mustafar stood both to mark the Jedi’s tomb and Vader’s ascent.

But the Jedi stirred.

_How many times must I kill you?_ Vader thought darkly. Perhaps the Jedi would trouble him no more when Kenobi joined him in death.

He prepared to face Kenobi. His mechanical limbs were not primed for combat. He had not been anticipating a lightsaber duel. But even partially impaired, he could easily defeat Kenobi. The old man was in his territory now. This battle station was Vader’s high ground.

And then the frightened ISB officer appeared with an intelligence report.

Vader checked his anger briefly. It was all the man would get.

“What is it, captain?” he growled.

“My Lord, several intruders have infiltrated the Death Star—”

“I am well aware, captain.”

“—I apologize, sir. Per your instructions, however, to alert you in the event of anything unusual regarding Jedi artifacts or survivors—”

“Yes, the Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi is on board. I have spoken with Tarkin on the matter.”

The look of confusion on the frightened man’s face betrayed his unfamiliarity with Kenobi. _That wasn’t what he was going to say._ Now Vader’s interest was piqued.

“Was there something else?” he invited in his dangerously silky basso.

“My Lord, one of the intruders—not Obi-wan Kenobi from the Clone Wars, but a girl—was spotted wielding a lightsaber.”

Vader stiffened.

He had faced many Jedi since his rebirth. Survivors of Order 66. Occasionally the more foolhardy would train apprentices of their own.

But this was different.

_Obi-wan Kenobi has taken on a new apprentice. Obi-wan has replaced me._

“My Lord …”

“Thank you, captain,” he said absently, waving him off.

The captain bowed, relieved, and departed.

_Obi-wan has replaced me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited to start writing my take on Vader's arc in this continuity. I just want to call attention to one thing: I think it was in Thrawn: Alliances that we see how Vader has mentally disassociated himself from his old life, referring to Anakin as "the Jedi" in the third person, a totally different person from Vader. We kind of see how even after the events of Episode III, in the new Vader comics, how Anakin transforms into Darth Vader. Really great storylines. I just wanted to call attention to how he goes from this disassociation from his old life to the last few lines—without realizing it, he unconsciously begins to refer to the Jedi as "me" again.


	16. I'd Rather Be in a Trash Compacter

Han had to admit he was starting to warm up to Leia, who skittered through the battle station’s labyrinthine corridors like a desert mouse. 

She carried herself with confidence a couple of factors larger than herself, walking the Mos Eisley cantina like she stood head and shoulders over everyone else, even if she barely came up to his chin. Normally he’d have wanted to knock someone like that down a peg or two, but despite her equally outsized dishing out of snark, she had proven more grounded and down to earth than appearances would suggest. 

And the bravery and initiative she’d shown … and undercutting his expectations (and greatly to his relief), she was far better against the living than against remotes with that laser sword of hers.

On the other hand, it had taken him exactly no time at all to determine that he hated Luke.

The Prince of Alderaan, holding the E-11 rifle in his smooth, tender hands, postured like a grand admiral. He wore flowing white robes like some kind of cult leader, and his sandy hair was plastered to his scalp with what looked like the stuff he used to calk airtight seams on the Falcon. 

Born into the lap of privilege, given reign over a planet and a seat in the Imperial Senate, and he thought he was some kind of great leader. The kid didn’t look like he could even grow a beard yet. His voice squeaked when he tried to bark out orders that Han and Leia pointedly ignored.

Han felt only a little bad for the kid that his planet was now interstellar dust. But whether he had a planet to be prince of or not, he sure acted like he expected to be obeyed.

After ignoring his orders for the eighth or ninth time, they turned down one of the interminable corridors.

They almost barreled right into a patrol of twenty stormtroopers.

Leia, reacting faster even than Han, brought up her lightsaber, its blue hum enough to drive the toppers back a pace or two.

“It’s them!” one of the troopers blurted in surprise, clearly not the top of her class.

“Blast them!” another shouted needlessly.

“I told you we should have gone the other way!” Luke added to the pile of unnecessary things to say.

“Shut up!” Leia shouted, the first helpful comment of the lot.

The entire troop opened fire at once, sending a wave of red their way, sending the four of them diving for cover in the alcoves of the coffin-shaped doorways that interrupted the corridors at regular intervals. 

Han took a bolt to his left shoulder before he could get behind cover. The blast ripped a shout of agony from him.

Chewbacca howled, throwing a furry arm over him protectively.

“Han!” Leia’s eyes were wide with horror. She was pinned down opposite him against the far wall, laser bolts pulsing through the air between them. She tensed, ready to cross the open space between them.

He waved her back.

“I’m fine!” he said with a brave grimace. “Just grazed me.”

He hoped. He’d seen a blast to the shoulder kill a friend before.

But he didn’t seem to be dying. He tested his arm. His shoulder burned with the tiniest motion. But it moved.

He would live.

More to reassure Chewie and Leia than anything else, he raised his good arm, peeked around the corner, and fired a few shots at the troopers before sinking back to safety.

Leia relaxed visibly.

“We need to retrace our steps!” Luke shouted over the din of blaster fire. “You undertake a Rebel operation, you follow the highest-ranking Rebel commander! And that’s me!”

“You’ve got an interesting idea of what a rebel is,” Leia snapped back at him.

Han threw a dirty look back at the boy, who stared back impudently, nestled into the alcove behind Leia.

“Maybe we should retrace our steps back to his cell and leave him there,” he shouted in Leia’s direction, still staring at Luke.

Luke gestured toward the hail of blaster fire.

“You want to keep going forward?”

“If it’s that or follow you, I don’t hate my chances,” Han shot back.

Luke just shook his head and said nothing, quickly popping out and firing a few shots at the troop. Annoyingly, he dropped two before he ducked back to safety.

Yes, Han hated the kid. He only hoped the deposed prince still had a fortune to pay him with. He was starting to get the sinking feeling that he was the source of the money Obi-wan had promised him.

* * *

Leia rolled her eyes as the two young men bickered, keeping her lightsaber where she could quickly swing out to deflect incoming bolts, and pulled out her commlink.

“Threepio, are you there?” she called into it.

After a moment of non-response, the droid’s annoyingly perky voice burst forth:

“Oh, Mistress Leia! You’ll never guess the trouble we’ve seen here. There was a—”

“Are you near a terminal Artoo can plug into?”

“Well … well, yes, Mistress Leia. But as I was saying, we—”

“Have him close the blast doors at sector …” Leia spared a glance for markings indicating their location. “At … can you track where we are?”

“Oh, yes, Mistress Leia! You’re at Sector G-4-i29, corridor Z0012! I must say, that is impressive. You’re quite close to the ship—only one level too high. We are located at—”

“Never mind, can you shut down the blast doors?”

“Which one, Mistress? There are several in that corridor.”

“The one that—”

It happened.

A crimson bolt streaked toward her head from the opposite direction. It struck the side of her head, leaving a smoking hole as she fell lifeless to the floor—or she dodged just in time, letting it send a shower of sparks from the durasteel frame her head had just been resting against—or she brought up her saber, redirecting the blast in the direction it came.

She chose the final option, sending the red bolt into the helmet of an Imperial trooper in black armor, taller and lankier than the others. The blast melted the plastoid mask of the felmet into a gruesome half-recognizable shape, and the trooper crumpled. But four more rounded the corner behind their fallen comrade.

Only the unceasing barrage from the troopers on the other side kept them from advancing directly on their position. But they moved with a deadly grace the white-clad stormtroopers lacked, making so little noise as they moved that Leia hadn’t even heard them approach. She doubted their shots would miss their mark when they popped out from their cover to fire on them. 

And from the black-clad troopers’ side, she was completely exposed.

“Shut them all down! Override whatever you need to and keep them closed!” she shouted into the commlink. It was their only hope.

As she spoke, one of the dark troopers half-emerged, still half behind cover. The rifle trained on her.

And then there came a rumbling of heavy machinery whirring.

The blast doors began to close on either side, overlapping durasteel plates emerging from the four corners of each door frame and converging in a shrinking diamond shape.

The black-armored troopers emerged from cover entirely and began sprinting toward them. The clattering of armored feet from the opposite side announced the approach of the standard troopers as well.

But the doors were closing too quickly. They wouldn’t make it. Leia smirked at the dark troopers as they realized it too.

And then the trooper, whose barrel had never deviated from its aim on her, lit up as he fired.

Almost automatically, even calmly, she brought her saber in front of her, finding the correct vector, and turned the bolt back to strike harmlessly against the laser-resistant blast doors as they closed.

Relieved, Leia switched her lightsaber off and stood. Han, Chewie, and Luke got to their feet as well.

Immediately, they realized their problem.

“Artoo has closed the blast doors,” Threepio’s voice came through the commlink, but the droid’s tone carried an unspoken “but.”

Luke continued the thought before the droid had a chance.

“But now we’re trapped.”

“We’re alive,” Han said with a smirk.

“For how much longer?”

Leia didn’t say anything. There wasn’t really anything to say. Luke was right. They had bought time, but they were now boxed in, and surely the whole Death Star now knew where.

Suddenly, a bright smile appeared on Luke’s face.

“We might just have everything we need,” he said, beginning to pace. “I think … yes … I think we can do it.”

“Now’s not the time to be cryptic,” Han grunted. Luke ignored him, turning to Leia.

“I’ve heard all kinds of stories from the Clone Wars, Jedi in situations like this before.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” she said quickly. “Not yet.”

“No, that’s fine. We just need your lightsaber.”

She clutched the silver hilt of her father’s saber protectively.

“Need it for what?”

“Jedi have used their lightsabers to cut through blast doors before.”

“Why the hell would we want to do that?” Han asked incredulously. “How’s that help us?”

“But,” Luke went on, heedless, “if it can go through a blast door, why can’t it go through the floor?”

Han, Chewie, and Leia stared at him for a moment.

It made perfect sense.

But it came from him.

“Well,” Leia shrugged at last. “It can’t get much worse.”

“Never a wise thing to say,” Han chided sternly as Leia reignited the lightsaber.

She set to work, plunging the saber into the almost mirror-clean black floor.

It went in like a knife in ronto butter. Leia giggled giddily at the power in her hands, driving it deeper, glowing molten durasteel oozing up from the wound, and beginning to make a circle in the floor.

She was nearly halfway finished when Threepio’s frantic voice came over the commlink.

“Mistress Leia! Artoo has been locked out of the system! I fear we—”

And the unit’s output switched to static.

Their comms had been jammed.

There came another whirring and rumbling of heavy machinery beneath them.

A blast door hissed, the diamond opening appearing and expanding.

There, standing in the hall, flanked by the four black-clad troopers, stood a massive figure, over two meters tall, draped in a black cape fastened with a thin chain. The towering figure’s face was hidden behind a wicked-looking black mask set into a wide black helmet.

The wheeze of mechanically aided breathing filled the room, sending chills down Leia’s spine.

“So,” the figure said in a rich basso, tinged with a droidlike robotic filter. “It seems I stand in the presence of the new apprentice of Obi-wan Kenobi.”


	17. A bitter reuinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Vader regarded the girl. None of the others mattered.

She didn’t look like much. The fear in her eyes could be read without any need for probing with the Force. Even from a few paces away, it was obvious that the crown of her head would barely reach his chest. She was dirty, covered in sand and machine oil, dressed in old farmer’s clothes. Her hair was cropped short, likely to avoid getting it caught in the machinery she worked on. Tatooine or Jakku, or another backwater hellscape, it wasn’t difficult to guess.

But two things about her gave him pause.

First, the Force was incredibly strong with her. Stronger than in any Jedi he had encountered, before or after the Purge and the rise of the Empire. But somehow her connection to the Force felt familiar, tickling his memory.

Second, the lightsaber she held, its blue blade too long for her petite body. Kenobi must not have taught her to adjust it, for the length was calibrated to the height of its previous owner.

Himself.

The memory flooded back, of Obi-wan standing over him, mocking him as the searing pain ravaged him, tearing screams from his shattering lungs. Obi-wan had taken his lightsaber. And gifted it to this girl.

But why? Any serious padawan was made to perform the pilgrimage to Ilum and mine a kyber crystal to construct their own lightsaber. It was a crucial part of any Jedi’s training.

Of course, the Empire's control over Ilum made any such pilgrimage difficult, but there were other means of acquiring kyber crystals. Why had Obi-wan allowed her his lightsaber?

“Obi-wan has trained you poorly,” he observed. He made no move to have the Death Troopers fire on them or even disarm them. It didn’t matter. They posed no threat. He could take his time. “You hold that lightsaber like a club.”

She didn’t answer. Notwithstanding her fear, her knees bent lower, her feet trying futilely to dig deeper into the metal, to ground herself better.

But the Force was strong with her.

He decided he would test her. There was potential here. And he knew all too well Obi-wan’s competence; if she was so inexpert, it could only have been because she had not been training for long. Obi-wan had not had time to sink his hooks into her. He had been foolish to bring her on this mission.

Or desperate.

He ignited his ruby lightsaber, a near mirror of the one she held. Her eyes stared hard at the hilt as he brought his saber up in a salute—a rare courtesy he afforded her for her bravery—as she noticed the similarities.

The others all fired on him with their blasters, the human attempting to surprise him with a shout as he pulled his trigger.

He fanned his lightsaber with a lazy swipe, deflecting the blaster bolts. With his other hand, he reached out with the force and ripped their weapons from their hands, letting them clatter harmlessly to the floor behind him.

“Stay back!” she yelled, and the concern in her voice made it obvious she meant it for her friends, not as a warning to him.

Never letting his gaze leave the girl, he charged forward, telegraphing an overhead swing before feinting to a thrust.

She didn’t fall for the feint.

_Double vision: she parried with unexpected swiftness and answered the attack with a clumsy but effective swing, biting into what remained of his left arm; that, or he met her swing with a parry of his own._

Choosing the former, he caught her blade—his blade—and ruby and sapphire crackled together, hissing and spitting sparks.

“Impressive,” he purred. “But insufficient.”

_Double vision: she thrust wildly, passionately, skewering his middle if he did nothing; he could bat the blade away and catch her off balance, decapitating her easily._

He chose to let her live, deflecting her thrust. Her eyes were livid. He felt the energy of her hatred, more than a little surprised.

_What cause could she have to hate me? Very few even know of me. What had Obi-wan told her?_

But that hatred was powerful.

He could use it.

He brought his saber down in a savage slash.

She caught it, but he saw her shiver under the force of his attack.

He did not relent. He swung down again.

And again.

And again.

Each impact drove her further and further back.

The wookie howled and hurled himself at Vader.

The Sith lord stomped his foot, sending a tremor in the force that pinned the wookie, the escaped prince, and the other human male against the walls.

He swung again and again.

Her back was now pressed against the blast door.

Again.

Again.

The blue lightsaber trembled in her hand, and she sunk to the floor, desperately clutching the hilt with both hands in a white-knuckled grip. Panic began to register in her face. She knew she was dead.

Finally, under the power of one final impact, her hands gave in, and the saber clattered to the floor, the deadman switch shutting it off mid-drop.

“Let her go, Vader,” came a familiar voice from behind. “It’s me you want.”

Vader turned on his heel with viperlike grace.

Obi-wan Kenobi stood in the corridor. The Kenobi he had known in the Clone Wars would have filled the space with his presence, but the years had not been kind to him. In twenty years, he had aged forty. In the Death Star, he seemed almost frail.

“Obi-wan Kenobi,” Vader said with a nod. He would pay his old master this respect. “We meet again, at last.”

“As I always knew we would.”

“You have come to meet your destiny. Your courage is to be applauded.”

“You’ve lost none of your arrogance,” the old man said with a sad shake of his head.

“I have paid the price of my arrogance,” Vader spat.

“You haven’t paid enough. Your head is still attached to your body.”

Vader smirked, though he knew Obi-wan couldn’t see it.

“Anger and aggression,” he hissed, “are not the Jedi way.”

“I bear no ill feelings toward you, Darth.” Obi-wan tossed the honored title as if it were his first name. “Only sadness for what you have become.”

“Then consider your own guilt at having made me what I am,” he said as he advanced on the old man, waving the black-clad Death Troopers aside. “And grieve for your apprentice for what she will become after I complete the training you started.”

The old man ignited his lightsaber. The hilt was the same he had used on Mustafar at their last meeting. It was the same saber that had claimed his arm and legs, had robbed him of his beauty—and stripped him of his vanity. After he had turned the girl to the dark side—as his secret apprentice or as one of the Inquisitorius, he had not decided—he would gift her this lightsaber, just as Obi-wan had given her Vader’s.


	18. Master vs. Apprentice

Obi-wan parried Anakin’s swing. It wasn’t powerful or particularly quick—a test. He eyed the hilt of Anakin’s ruby lightsaber. Fashioned almost identically to the one he had used back on Mustafar and throughout the Clone Wars, proving that he was as sentimental as ever, whatever else he may pretend to be.

Anakin kept the tip of his saber pointed at Obi-wan’s eye, angling it perfectly so that it appeared to be a single red circle, almost impossible to determine how close it was to his face. Obi-wan recognized it as an obscure, very ancient saber technique, rarely seen since the days of the Old Republic. This form was all about tiny movements, minute feints and quick jabs. It was not the beautiful, artistic forms taught in the Jedi temple even when Dooku was a padawan. It was stark, utilitarian, and formal. A stark departure from the last time their sabers had crossed.

He had never taught it to Anakin—either Palpatine had taught it to him or he had learned of it himself with the stolen Jedi temple archives. Obi-wan matched the ancient form, pointing his saber at the red plastisteel eyes of the black mask that hid his fallen apprentice’s face.

Anakin didn’t flinch. He advanced, making quick, sharp thrusts with each step, forcing Obi-wan back. The old Jedi had to admit that Anakin was better at this strange form than he was—this form that made dueling more a dejarik game of minute, deceptive movements than the broad, elegant dance he was used to.

Though the creaking in his joints, the pain in his ankles and wrists, and the crick in his back reminded him he was not as young as he was the last time they met. He wasn’t sure he could quite manage the classic lightsaber forms anymore, at least not unmodified. He hadn’t had much opportunity to practice.

A fiery pain seared through his shoulder. Anakin’s red blade protruded from it. 

“You’ve grown slow,” his robotically altered voice growled.

He withdrew for a split second, readying for another lunge.

Obi-wan anticipated this one, deflecting it and returning a quick, one-handed bat against his fallen apprentice’s arm. Black plastisteel sizzled and exposed wires popped out like singed hairs.

“We’re both growing prematurely old,” he smiled sadly. “Qui-Gon was more sprightly than you at your age.”

Only a forewarning of the Force saved him from the sudden sideswipe of crimson as Anakin reverted, briefly, to the classic lightsaber form. His saber fanned in wide arcs that Obi-wan barely managed to evade. Prematurely aged, perhaps, but the Force was as strong with Anakin as ever.

Obi-wan danced back, feeling his muscles achingly recall the familiar forms. Ducking low, he spun under the swinging arms of the dark giant, stabbing backward into Anakin’s robotic knee.

But Anakin was too fast, his saber arcing back to deflect with immense power, nearly knocking Obi-wan off balance. The Jedi Master recovered, letting the momentum take him a few steps back.

Almost nonchalantly, Anakin turned to face him again.

“You have indeed become powerful,” Obi-wan acknowledged. “Though your form lacks finesse.”

“You might have saved your analysis for your new apprentice,” hissed Anakin. “More training would have served her well.” He stalked toward Obi-wan, his lightsaber ignited but resting at his side. “Soon I shall be her Master, and I will compensate for your lack of progress.”

As the Sith approached, the Force whispered to Obi-wan, showing him glimpses of what was to come.

He would not survive this. Not in this crude form, anyhow.

Leia and the others were trapped behind him.

Obi-wan reached out in the Force, sensing Leia’s fear. Her anger. Her desperation. 

He manipulated her saber, a trickle of the Force so subtle he hoped Anakin would not see it. He brought it off the floor vertically, cold emitter down, toward her hand.

“She will indeed continue her training,” he said, nodding, using the Force to project his voice back towards her. To let her know he was speaking to her as much as to Anakin. “But not with you.”

Anakin was on top of him, swinging his saber down with terrible power. Obi-wan caught it with his blue blade, showering him in sparks.

And not with me, he added through the Force, for her ears only.

Run.

The ruby lightsaber swung up, granting only a momentary respite, before crashing down again, breaking Obi-wan’s parry.

* * *

The red lightsaber passed through Ben’s brown robe, dividing it neatly in two. It parted, fluttering to the ground, revealing the empty space where the Jedi Master had once stood.

There was a stunned silence. Even Vader paused, his mask focused on the pile of empty robes, as if he even he couldn’t quite believe it.

Ben’s final word rang through Leia’s ear again, louder.

Run!

She didn’t need It to happen to know what she needed to do.

With her father’s saber in her hand, she ignited its blue blade and plunged it into the durasteel floor again, turning as fast and hard as she could, completing the circle. The four of them fell through the hole, down only about twelve feet, landing on an identical durasteel floor below, at the base of a massive open bulkhead.

Through which lay the hangar where the Falcon waited for them.

“Go!” Leia shouted, needlessly as it turned out. The four of them had already started running.

“I hope that old man managed to get the tractor beam disabled,” Han muttered under his breath.

Luke’s jaw dropped.

“You mean you don’t even know if we can take off?”

“We have to trust Ben,” Leia snapped.

“This is some rescue,” Luke shot, reaching the open walkway into the Falcon.

In seconds, they were inside. The first of the stormtrooper’s blaster fire sparked off the hull of the Falcon just as they sealed the ship. 

“Mistress Leia!” shouted Threepio, already buckled into the seats near the dejarik board. “Artoo took the opportunity to secure me here while he fed calculations to the Falcon’s navicomputer! It was terribly thoughtful of him.”

She didn’t answer. There was no time.

Almost immediately, Han and Chewie were in the cockpit, and the Falcon lurched off the hangar floor, slipping effortlessly out of the shielded hangar and into the blackness of space, no tractor beam yanking them back.

The stars sank and then stretched into streaks as they darted into hyperspace.

But Ben was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let me be the first and maybe only person to state that I don't really like _SC 38 Reimagined_. A lot of love and talent and hard work went into it, and I can appreciate that. But it just didn't have the intended effect for me—a bit over the top, and the boisterous movements of the actors/stuntfolk struck me as a little too theatrical, in that it reminded me of when I was in theater in high school and the boys got ahold of stage swords for the production of Macbeth and in bouts of extreme enthusiasm wound up breaking quite a few of them. I know that the fighting style in A New Hope isn't really seen again in Star Wars. What they were doing was actually closer to fencing, keeping the tip of your sword pointed at your opponent's eye, making very small, quick movements. It's not a very visually impressive style, but it's pretty practical. So I wanted to kind of motivate that a bit here.
> 
> I mean, I've read versions where they were fighting like that because Vader's limbs were not working very well, but, hm, I like it being a deliberate choice. Maybe because neither of them are quite as agile as they once were, Obi-wan because of his age and Vader because of his mechanical-arms-and-legs thing. Maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously something like this would be pretty lame if it were just a screenplay of A New Hope with the names switched. I tried to think, who is Luke, deep down, when you strip away the upbringing and experiences in the canonical Episode 4? Take away Leia’s cinnamon buns and her princess upbringing and her Imperial Senate seat and her secret rebel affiliation and who is she really?
> 
> I’m kind of going on the idea that, deep down, Luke is a lot like Padme and Leia is a lot like Anakin. Luke is impulsive and reckless, but I wonder how much of that comes from the wild frontier Tatooine, “boring hick town” upbringing (I’m allowed to say that because I grew up in the Platonic ideal of a boring hick town). But he also becomes, after his training, more thoughtful and serene, something Anakin never accomplishes. Leia, meanwhile, can play serene, or any role she needs to, from her royal upbringing, but she has that “Anakin Yes” sass and snark, and a pretty surprisingly vicious side to her.
> 
> So I try here to operate under that paradigm.


End file.
